Hello Everyone! I know Iíve been pretty quiet on this front for a quite a while, so itís time for an update:

- The production order of circuit boards, with their many surface mount components, arrived Friday and I am in the process of un-packing and testing them. I have a Vector+Expander setup built up from those boards and there have been no problems so far.

- I have a partial order of front panels, the rest should be here soon.

- I am waiting on buttons. I have a tracking number, but they were just sent yesterday, so I donít have a delivery date yet. I'm hoping for early next week.

- The firmware has been moving along quickly all summer. Iíve added a list of recently added features below. Iíve got a great group of beta
testers that have been banging on it regularly for many weeks now and though there are still a few tweaks to be made, things are looking pretty solid.

Assuming no surprises with the circuit boards, I can start building production units as soon as the buttons arrive, which (with a bit of travel
early September) makes for initial shipments in mid-September. If you are in the US or Canada, email me directly for ordering
info (jim (at) five12 (dot) com), if you are in the UK/EU, SchneidersLaden is also taking orders. Also: I will be at Knobcon early next
month demoing the system. If youíre in the Chicago area, donít hesitate to come by and say hello!

Cheers,
Jim

Feature Updates:

Long Sequences: For each part, you can set the max sequence length to 16, 32 or 64 steps.

Chord Mode : Parts 5-8 can be set to run in Chord mode. And yes, you can have 64 step chord seqs. You can also output chord pitches via CV -- but don't expect miracles, many analog oscillators don't track very well over more than 2 octaves. The chord library includes all dyads from unison to octaves, so itís very handy for getting reliable seimtone offsets between two oscillators.

Pitch Glide : Works over CV for monophonic voices, not for MIDI yet. Otherwise, works very much like the same feature in Numerology: Set the gate to 90% or Tie, set the glide from 0% to 100%.

Groove Timing : per step 'nudge' forward or backward in time.

Step Repeat : 1X to 8X .

CC1-3 : 3 lanes of MIDI CCs out, generated per-step.

External Modulation: Each part as two modulation busses that can listen to either or both of the Mod1, Mod2 inputs. The initial target list includes gate, step length, ratcheting, probability, start step and direction.

Generate, Evolve, Double Seq, Invert, Shift-Left, Shift-Right : These are initiated by shift-clicking on the white keyboard-keys, and are all now functional. The current generator algorithms are based on Acid1 & 2 and Berlin1 from Numerology. I'll be adding more soon, and any newly-devised generator algorithms will end up in Numerology too.

USB Disk Mode : Push encoder 9 while booting to turn the Vector into a really big thumb drive. Connect via USB to your PC/Mac to backup files or copy in new firmware.

Routing: You can now specify MIDI output channels, per part, per output. All of the preferences pages have been re-organized to be quicker to navigate.

Not quite done yet:

Preset Playlist: I have the UI done, just need to setup the internals. The UI is very straightforward: For each preset, you basically specify: "Play for X beats or bars then loop to preset Y for N times". Scenes also need a bit of TLC.

External Clock: Partially implemented, working out the details. You'll be able to use clock triggers with varying base rates (1 beat, 1/3 beat, 1/4 beat, etc) with or without external reset. You will be able to Ďarmí the Vector and use an external reset signal to start running, but still let each part reset internally.

Custom Tunings : A lot of the bits are in place, but I haven't finalized the implementation yet. There is room for 4 tunings, with custom note names per note. The UI is simple but also some work: you have to dial in the tunings in cents for all notes. I will pre-load some alternate tunings, a couple equal temperament options, and probably a JI tuning and perhaps a gamelan of some sort. I donít consider tunings to be essential for an initial release, but if they donít quite make it, they will come soon after.

Another Knobcon note: I plan to have two systems at the table. One will be my current 2x76hp demo system with speakers, but I'll also have a 104hp system with a Vector and some synth and drum modules and headphones for folks that want to spend some time playing around.

Just to say that I got "hands on" with the 104hp system for alpha testing and loved what I saw. Jim's got my pre-order now. I think people will be pleasantly surprised with what it's got at delivery, and if what he says about what's to come is accurate (and his excellent track record on N4 itself is anything to show for it!) it'll just keep getting better.

I did run into a minor bug (trying to save with no SD card inserted crashed the unit) but Jim assured me it'll be fixed before release.

A super secret detail I don't think Jim would be upset with me for sharing: there is an "STG" port on the back for sync out a la Suit & Tie Guy's modules.

Just to say that I got "hands on" with the 104hp system for alpha testing and loved what I saw. Jim's got my pre-order now. I think people will be pleasantly surprised with what it's got at delivery, and if what he says about what's to come is accurate (and his excellent track record on N4 itself is anything to show for it!) it'll just keep getting better.

Thanks for coming by! So great to be able to show the Vector out in the wild.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wohali

I did run into a minor bug (trying to save with no SD card inserted crashed the unit) but Jim assured me it'll be fixed before release.

Yup -- I'm all over the SD card this week... (and the doc, and presets, and, and and... )

Quote:

Originally Posted by wohali

A super secret detail I don't think Jim would be upset with me for sharing: there is an "STG" port on the back for sync out a la Suit & Tie Guy's modules.

That is correct -- two in fact, one for input, one for output. If you are handy with cables and wiring, you can easily fabricate a DIN Sync adapter cable for those ports if you need to.

That STG port sounds like it could come in handy. I wonder if it could be connected to the CV/Gate bus on power bus boards, to work with Malekko and Make Noise modules which use the CV/Gate bus to distribute clock data (e.g. Varigate8+, Voltage Block, Tempi, Rene v2, etc).

That STG port sounds like it could come in handy. I wonder if it could be connected to the CV/Gate bus on power bus boards, to work with Malekko and Make Noise modules which use the CV/Gate bus to distribute clock data (e.g. Varigate8+, Voltage Block, Tempi, Rene v2, etc).

If it is the same format -- e.g. DIN Sync, that should work fine -- you just have to work up the custom cable. Funny, I had a Rene on loan and just returned it today...